Dirk Nowitzki left Wednesday's loss to Memphis with lower back tightness during the second quarter.

Nowitzki said he hurt his back after taking a jump shot during pregame warmups. Nowitzki played just 10 minutes.

"I took a jump shot in warmups with 20 [minutes] on the clock and just the back locked up a little bit, went stiff," Nowitzki said. "I came back, tried to loosen it up, tried to play in the game, but it wasn't really loose enough to really do something.

"If I'm out there 50 percent, I'm not really helping much anyway, so [I] decided to take the night off, hopefully get some good treatment [Thursday] and have a big game on Friday. We definitely need to stop the bleeding. ... Hopefully, I'll be 100 percent."